


Absolutely Necessary and Altogether Impossible

by esteefee



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/esteefee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Reese braked suddenly. "Stay in the car," he said, and then slid out and pounded away into Washington Square Park, and there wasn't even a Number—they were just enjoying an evening drive after the concert.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolutely Necessary and Altogether Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: unmitigated angsty fluffy H/C ahead.
> 
> At least there are no kittens? And no spoilers.

Reese braked suddenly. "Stay in the car," he said, and then slid out and pounded away into Washington Square Park, and there wasn't even a Number—they were just enjoying an evening drive after the concert. 

Harold felt unmoored at the sudden jolt of adrenaline, at the sudden absence of Reese, who appeared to be leaping at three men at once, arms and legs flying—oh, there was a woman with torn clothes. She was fighting too, beating at the back of the third man, who was trying to circle behind Reese.

So strange to be watching what he had only ever heard in grunts and gasps over the headset—strange, and terrifying, the way Reese moved like a viper, hands high and then darting fast for their guts, their throats, while his legs flashed and—

Suddenly Reese went down to the ground—so suddenly Harold didn't have time to cry out, and he scrabbled at the handle, getting the door open just as Reese drove himself up again in a flurry of kicks, and something glinted in his hand now, silver and red.

Harold lurched forward toward the woman, who had fought free of the man in the brown suit grappling with her, his hair a brassy blond under the park lights. He turned as Harold approached, flicked a look at the one man down and the third being beaten by Reese, and apparently the odds were too much for him, because he broke and ran deeper into the park.

The woman gave Harold a fierce look, but he just lifted his palms and turned toward the struggle still going on. 

The first attacker was endeavoring to crawl toward the bloody knife lying on the ground, so Harold stepped forward and kicked it out of reach. It skittered away, ending up in the bushes somewhere.

The woman shared a sly smile with him just as Reese let out a grunt and, with a truly unpleasant cracking sound and cry of pain, the attacker collapsed to the ground.

Reese leaned over and planted his hands on his knees. The look he gave Harold was...unkind.

"I thought I told you to stay in the car."

The woman let out a choked laugh of relief. "Oh my God. I can't believe it." She put her hands over her face. "Thank you both. Thank you so much." She seemed to take hold of herself, pressing her palms over her chest as if to slow her heart rate. 

Harold took a breath and said "My name is Harold, Ms...?"

"Shaniqua. I'm Shaniqua Miles." Ms. Miles held out her hand and smiled tremulously; she was a strikingly beautiful woman, Harold realized absently, with angular cheekbones and a very complicated hairstyle swept up and held in by various combs. 

Harold shook her hand and indicated Reese. "My friend, John." 

John approached. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Miles. Do you have any idea who these men are?"

Their little kerfuffle had attracted some late-night gawkers, who gathered closer with murmurs of _"Are you guys all right?"_ and _"Dudes look wasted, man."_ The two "dudes" in question were still on the ground, one completely unconscious, the other in a state of glazed agony. 

"Just your run of the mill assholes," Ms. Miles answered John. "I noticed them getting all rowdy at Terra Blues while I was doing my last set. They must've followed me afterward, because of course I was asking for it by singing so pretty." Her voice shook, but she looked ready to kill. 

"I'm so sorry," Harold said, feeling helpless. Crimes of opportunity weren't in the Machine's purview. 

"Not your fault," she said. She clutched her arms tighter around herself. Harold knew better than to offer physical comfort, but he pulled out his wallet and selected a business card for his Harold Wren persona.

"If you require witnesses," he said, and offered her the card. "Sorry to leave you so hastily, but my friend and I should go see to his injuries."

John gave him a startled look.

"Oh, as if I hadn't noticed." 

John smiled slightly. "Will you be all right, Ms. Miles?"

"I'll call the police," Harold said, turning away. He saw with relief there were at least two couples in the crowd, now. Surreptitiously, he dialed up Detective Fusco and backed away long enough to give him a short rundown of the happenings, asking him to dispatch someone soonest to secure the situation. Then he hung up and pushed his way back through the onlookers to give his goodbyes.

Shaniqua was standing closer to John—she was wearing his coat now, and tugging at his jacket insistently. "You're sure it isn't bad?"

"Hardly a scratch. Harold will take care of it."

She lifted an eyebrow and then gave Harold a smile. "Is that so, Harold?" 

"Yes. Yes, of course. Whatever he needs."

Shaniqua nodded firmly in approval and then gave John a kiss on the cheek. John's mouth twitched, and some sort of communication must have occurred in Harold's absence, because John put his arm around her in a half-hug, and said, "I meant what I said about the brass knuckles," and she laughed.

It was a shaky laugh, but an honest one.

"Good luck, Ms. Miles," Harold said sincerely and offered his hand, but she insisted on kissing him as well. He felt his cheek grow warm where she'd pressed her lips.

Well, she was a very beautiful, brave woman.

They departed without incident, waiting until two police cruisers pulled up before driving away. Harold texted his thanks to Detective Fusco and then turned toward John, who had insisted on driving despite his injury.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"It really is just a scratch."

"But you'll let me take care of it," Harold said. "After all, I did promise Shaniqua." Harold's heart was still racing. He didn't want John to drop him off just yet.

"All right," John said, sounding relieved.

He drove them back to his apartment.

:::

It was the aftermath of adrenaline, Harold supposed, that was making his hands tremble slightly, that was the cause of the insistent pounding in his head. The suddenness, and how quickly everything had happened—he felt a little bit like he'd fallen off the edge of a cliff, only to bounce back up on a giant moon balloon, the kind he'd jumped on once as a child at the state fair. An unexpectedly safe landing.

And for some reason the Orff they'd been to see tonight was running through his mind on repeat, only not the ponderous _O Fortuna_ , but that sardonic little swan song, _Olim Lacus Colueram_.

He removed the first aid kit from John's closet and brought it into the main room, where John was sitting on the bed. He'd already stripped his jacket and shirt, and was working on removing his undershirt. 

The various layers had obviously done a pretty good job of protecting him, for the blood on John's shirt already looked dry. John reached back over his shoulder and stripped the shirt over his head, leaving his hair mussed. He quickly smoothed it back into order, Harold was amused to see.

"Thanks," John said when Harold handed him the kit, and he went digging into it, coming up with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a package of sterile gauze. Harold watched with a vague sort of horror while John soaked the pad of gauze in alcohol and briskly started rubbing down the wound on his ribs, his lips pulling back from his teeth in discomfort.

"Surely there's a better way." They made painless antiseptics these days, didn't they? Harold looked away from the pale drops of pink wending their way down John's abdomen. "That seems a trifle barbaric." 

"I've been doing this for a while," John said, irony shading his voice, and Harold shut up. When John was finished cleaning the wound, he wiped his fingers, then poked at the edges of the cut thoughtfully. It was bleeding again at the deepest point, where it seemed to trail John's lowest rib like a question mark. Harold shivered. 

"I'll need your help with the bandages. We can avoid stitches this time," John said, and gave him a quirky smile. 

"Yes. Of course." Anything. Harold hadn't even seen the knife. Hadn't been aware of the danger until it was over. So quickly did life turn.

John handed Harold a strip of sterile butterfly bandages, but Harold realized he hadn't washed his hands, and he went to the bathroom to do so, using hot water and scrubbing conscientiously beneath his fingernails to a slow count of thirty before shaking his hands off and returning to the living room. He used a loose handful of gauze to dry off his fingertips, and then peeled open the first bandage.

John was waiting patiently, a piece of gauze pressed to his wound, his gaze turned outward toward the windows. "Terrible end to our date, I guess. Sorry about this, Harold."

"Don't apologize," Harold said, suddenly angry. "You were just doing...what you do." He used his wrist to tilt the lamp on the bedside table and then leaned closer. "Move your hand."

John removed the gauze, and Harold got his first really good look. 

It was easy to tell, this close, the path the blade had traveled; more importantly, its intended target, and how John had spun, averting it from slipping between his ribs, so that the red, cutting line of it swooped and skated across John's ribs, instead of through.

Harold leaned over and rested his forehead against John's shoulder just for a moment. He took a deep breath and smelled John's sweat and skin—warm, acrid, alive. 

"Finch?" John's hand hovered over his knee before settling.

"You must be very quick," Harold said, drawing back. 

"Yes. I am. I promise." John's voice was achingly soft. He squeezed Harold's knee.

"Good. That's important," Harold said briskly, and peeled the bandage from the backing. "Now hold still." 

He applied each butterfly very carefully, forcing himself to think of the wound's edges as cloth he was hemming instead of raw, oozing flesh. He wasn't very successful.

When he was finished, he sat back and surveyed the result. 

John reached out and touched his cheek, lifting his head. "Neatly done, Harold, thanks. Probably won't even scar." John took a tube from the kit and applied some ointment over the exposed bits before taping some gauze on. "Are you staying?" John's eyes asked him to, shadowed and just slightly worried. 

"Yes. I think I will." It would be a much better end to their date than antiseptics, blood, and bandages—to be held in John's arms and feel his rough hands on Harold's skin.

They prepared for bed, Harold hanging his clothes in the space John had provided in the tiny closet by the door. John had a larger walk-in closet, but it wasn't for clothes. It was for the very eventualities Harold was mentally trying to avoid.

It wasn't until they were lying in bed, with John's large hand creeping under Harold's undershirt to rub warmly against his abdomen, that something broke deep within Harold's chest—some wall between the vision of John falling to the ground and the empty slot Harold held in his mind for the formless but dark, inevitable future, wherein he would be utterly alone again, helpless against the tide. 

He choked out a sound—John's name, perhaps—and John stopped his gentle exploration just shy of Harold's chest. With a tug, John got him to roll over to meet his eyes. 

"I promise," John said after a moment, going up on one elbow to put his hand on Harold's cheek, thumb stroking under Harold's eye.

But of course John couldn't make such a promise. And almost, almost Harold wished he'd never found John Reese. As difficult as it had been struggling with his guilt over Nathan, that had been in the past. And as helpless as he'd felt over each Irrelevant death he'd been too ineffectual to prevent, at least it hadn't been this goddamned _personal_. 

This death would be far, far too important.

John shook his head. "You're not hearing me, Harold." He bent and kissed the corner of Harold's mouth, his temple, his mouth again, tongue flicking along Harold's lower lip. "Anyway, there's a good chance we'll be going out together. Especially if you don't stay in the car."

"That's a much more attractive prospect," Harold said.

"Not to me it isn't," John said fiercely, kissing him again. This time Harold met him in urgency, pulling at John's shoulders until he fairly melted against Harold's lips, his chest pressing against Harold's. When Harold drew his hands down John's back, he by-passed the edge of the bandage wrapped around John's side.

Harold decided he could let go of the future for this little while. With practice, maybe he could push it off-stage permanently. He told himself it was one against three and John had barely a scratch, and that John seemed to be determined to keep his promise.

And no matter what, if given the option, Harold wouldn't be staying in the car.

He kissed John hard, clutching at his hips with both hands, until John pulled back and licked his lips thoughtfully. They were reddened from Harold's kisses and a faint trace of beard burn. 

"What?" Harold complained. "Why are you stopping?"

"I'm not," John said, rubbing his lower lip. "Just...for some things, 'quick' isn't necessarily what I'm shooting for."

"In this case, I'm happy to make an exception," Harold said pulling him down again. And so John kissed him, taking up his urgency, and soon John's mouth moving against his, and the touch of John's warm hands and the solid weight of his body pressing Harold down, holding him, made the promise seem more real. 

And as pleasure washed over him, surging through his synapses, for one glorious moment, Harold truly believed.

 

_End._

 

_Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible._

—Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006)

**Author's Note:**

> Full [Carmina Burana](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRjyxr1ysKw) \-- U.C. Davis Symphony. Oh, Orff. :) 
> 
> _[Olim Lacus Colueram](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ab14J66-Q)_. Finch's swan song. It takes a pretty ballsy countertenor to sing this piece.


End file.
